HAVANA — In addition to the work he has been doing to try to bring new jobs to the city, Havana Economic Development Coordinator Ron Hills has now set his sights on ways to train the local work force to address the needs of employers.

In his quarterly report recently to the City Council, Hills said he has been in talks with administrators at Havana High School and Spoon River College, which has a learning center in Havana, about vocational training programs and partnerships with local businesses that could benefit the city, the schools and those businesses.

"Something I think that everybody knows (is) that I felt that education is going to be one of the big factors in pulling our community out of a downward — out of what has been a downward trend for some years," Hills said. "I see us moving forward now with different business opportunities. I'm still very passionate about trying to get our school systems involved with our local businesses so that we hire from within, and I think that's a good thing."

For starters, Hills said he would like to create a home remodeling program for Havana High School students in partnership with the school's industrial arts program and local contractors. Hills said he is imagining a program in which a contractor or retired contractor would work with a group of students over the summer to renovate a home that the city would purchase, possibly using tax increment financing district funds, which can be used for programs that educate and have the potential for creating jobs.

Hills said he already has met with the Havana High School principal and with Kathleen Brown, the community and economic development educator for the University of Illinois-Extension, to get talks going. He also said, though, that the idea at this point is really still just that: an idea.

Ideally, Hills said, the students would get paid for their work and they would receive class credit while learning construction skills and workplace discipline. And as for navigating the red tape and organizing the program, Hills said Brown assured him that, "It sounds tougher than it is."

Hills has been pursuing another idea as well. He said he has reached out to Carol Davis, the vice president of community outreach for Spoon River College, about setting up some kind of a partnership between the college, which has a Havana learning center, and local businesses in which the school systems would provide an employee screening and training service.

The college could test, train and screen people for specific jobs when contacted by businesses about job openings, Hills said. This service could help relieve the difficulty of finding reliable, skilled people to hold jobs, which Hills said is an issue local business owners have shared with him.

Page 2 of 2 - The city, just like the regional economic development effort known as Focus Forward, has identified job training as an important aspect to creating a foundation that can support development.